A Whole Lota Holes!

Ok, so its taken a few days to get my lazy scribe to upload photos and edit them for me, but narrowing down 200 photos to a manageable amount for a blog is quite a feat so I suppose I shouldn't blame her too much.  Of course, if you really want to see what I enjoyed on Thursday you will just have to wait until the book is published (which I may point out could be a few years since she still hasn't finished my Newfoundland adventure and that was THREE years ago!).

So, Thursday morning the three sleepyheads were awakened by three quiet knocks at the door and then a loud bang as the housekeeper tried to let herself in at 8:30am (check-out was not until 11 so who knows what that was about).  Even with this early alarm system, we did not get out of there until five minutes to 11 and my new buddy Nate declared "Hey, we still had five minutes left!"  Oh boy, I've got a lot of training to do with these people if I ever want to travel with them again.  But, what they lack in early-rising, they make up for in sight-seeing and entertainment, so I will forgive them (for now).

The rain was no deterrent for us, as our first item on the agenda was a place called "Hole N'' the Rock" (and no I don't know why the apostrophes come after the N when the missing letter is before it, nor why there are two of them).  My guides were all looking out for some sign or another to tell them where the place was, fearful that we might miss it with all the rain.  There was some discussion on this matter until we came around a bend in the road, and all erupted into laughter.  Clearly finding the place was not going to be in issue after all.

I won't bore you all with the history of this place, but basically some man and his wife decided to blow holes in the mountain and build their house there.  I wonder if they thought they were bears and were trying to hibernate or something.  Sadly we could not take pictures of the inside of the house, but it included a bathtub completely carved out of the stone, as well as a deep fryer for their chips/french fries, taxidermy samples of animals they actually had help them carry the stone out of the house under construction, and other weird and wonderful items.  These humans never fail to amaze me.

Once we'd completed the inside tour, we donned raincoats and explored all the weird paraphernalia around the outside, including a "Big Foot" sighting, a double-decker outhouse, and my personal favourite, the original ride-on lawn mower.  Of course, my escorts just had to spend time in the gift shops, while all I really wanted was to get a move on and see some more stuff!

Can you see a car (truck)?

It was after noon when we finally made our way back through Moab and to the Arches park again, and I had to smile as we pulled into the Visitors Center there as the sun managed to burst through the clouds for the first time.  Of course, they had to go shopping AGAIN, but their argument was that it was so we could stay in the park as long as we wanted, without feeling we had to race back there before it closed, which turned out to be a good thing in the end, so I'll say no more on the matter.

If you know nothing about this park, let me tell you that it is HUGE!  There are areas that are just filled with these towering pillars and arches, and then long spaces of deadness.  Well, not exactly deadness since it was filled with desert plants of all kinds, once again surprising me at how fake they appeared, and yet clearly were growing naturally.  Sometimes when I looked across the vastness to other pillars and arches in the distance I couldn't help but think about the ruins of other civilizations I've seen, and felt like these structures must have somehow been man-made.  We even joked about the metal pole and mortar that must have been used to hold Balanced Rock in such a precarious place.  Unbelievable!

The night before we had been too late into the park to get a map, so it was nice to have some kind of a guide this time, and learning the names of some of the rock formations made for a little extra entertainment in some cases.  The night before, my escorts had jokingly called the three rock towers the Three Wise Men, but looking at the map we learned they were actually the Three Gossips.  Well, that was just too good a story to pass up, so here they are, all talking behind my back!

The first real hike of the day was to the upper look-out of Delicate Arch.  There was no parking available at the head of the trail to the Arch itself, and having done the look-out trail, perhaps that was for the best.  It was quite a steep climb up trails and rock-formed stairways which reminded me very much of the climb up Hyuana Picchu in Peru, only this time the rock was red and much dryer.  Nate chose to stay behind while Clare and Di took the climb (not realizing just what they were getting into).  And again, like Peru, we met people of all nationalities as we made our way.  For some reason a little black and green bear hanging onto a camera causes quite a bit of curiosity.  I really don't know why.  Eventually we made it to the top, and with the help of Clare's zoom lens, we could pretend we got rather close to the most popular arch in the park.  In actuality there was a huge cavern between us and the arch, lending my photo to look as though I've been Photoshopped in.  I assure you, I was not!  Clare had to lie on her stomach to get that shot, and its a pretty good one if you ask me (of course, I feel all pictures of me are pretty good).

After a dinner break (which was taken in the car as they complained that it was too windy and cold in the picnic area we'd found), we headed to a part of the park that had been too busy earlier in the day (they are pretty strict about only using designated parking spaces).  Here I got to hang onto Clare's camera some more, meet more people from various places around the world, and hang out in even more holes in rocks.  Walking out to the Double Arches, it sounded as though people were on the other side of the rock walls, but on further inspection we learned that it was just the acoustics, and the voices we heard were actually the echos of the people hiking behind us.  How strange, but its always good to determine that one is not really hearing voices that aren't there.

Finally we were all exhausted, and Arched-out.  As we headed back towards the parking lot, our view was of the buildings that would be our finally stop in the park before heading home.  This particular stop of the day would not have been noteworthy at all, had Nate not declared them "the pillars of refuse".  So, a photo had to be taken just to remind us of such a wonderfully important part of the day (at least for them).

It was 7pm before we left the park, and a long drive in the rain followed, returning us to Ogden and well desired beds at about 1am.  No wonder they barely did anything on Friday (yet even in their nothingness day, they didn't even find it in their hearts to help me update my blog).  *Sigh.

Well, you've probably determined by now that I am, yet again, a day behind in my writing.  I have had an amazing day today as well, but everyone here is long asleep and I guess I should let Clare do the same.  You, my devoted readers, will have to wait.  Good-night for now.